Review: ‘The Office’

"The Office" is sparse on extras, offering only 50 minutes of added material. But for those of us who can't get enough of the show, every minute counts. One disc in the BBC Video package contains all six episodes from the first season; the second disc features six deleted scenes and a docu on the making of the Britcom.

Like most TV series on DVD, “The Office” is sparse on extras, offering only 50 minutes of added material. But for those of us who can’t get enough of the show, every minute counts.

One disc in the BBC Video package contains all six episodes from the first season; the second disc features six deleted scenes and a docu on the making of the Britcom.

Series co-creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant explain why they deleted some hilarious scenes; e.g., one missed the cut because it was too much like a joke. In the docu, the duo explains they didn’t want a typical sitcom, with a lot of gags and incidents; they wanted to convey the everyday agony of working in an office.

They, and other lead actors in the series, say that little of the show is improvised and that they arrived at the docu-style because the lighting and camerawork were easier and faster.

Gervais, who also brilliantly plays the self-centered and lazy boss David Brent, addresses the question of whether someone so inefficient could survive in a real-life corporation. The BBC, for example, is filled with “people who are rubbish” (“and in very important jobs,” adds Merchant), but they are never asked to account for their work (or lack thereof).

While they’re at it, the duo also skewer “losers” who look at DVDs expecting a lot of extras.